


Preserved

by moonlit_wings



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Background Relationships, Backstory, Dark Forest (Strange Magic), Gen, Goblins, No Dialogue, POV Inanimate Object, Royalty, Short One Shot, Trees, Worldbuilding, referenced history of regicide, short story - long timespan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-14 23:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7196636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlit_wings/pseuds/moonlit_wings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amber has a long memory. The history of Bog’s staff, described from its own perspective. Creative writing exercise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preserved

I am a seed. I fall. I fly. I fall. I am surrounded by safety in the soil. There is water. I open. 

I grow. I have roots. I have leaves. I feel sunlight. I am a seedling. 

I grow. My trunk hardens with the beginnings of bark. I am a sapling. 

I grow. I am tall and strong. Not the tallest or the strongest, but tall and strong nonetheless. I am a tree. 

I am roots that reach far across to catch the rainfall and far down to where everything is damp and cool. I am sap that runs up my trunk carrying water and nutrients to my leaves. I am resin that runs down my bark to keep insects from burrowing into me. I am a canopy that is the bane of plants that grow in my shade and try to take my water and my nutrients. 

Animals pick at and tear at my leaves. I cannot stop them and so grow used to the irritation. 

I grow. I grow old. I slow. I turn to stone. 

Goblins pick at me and take part of me away from the rest of myself. I do not know why, but I have nothing but time to observe and learn. 

I am treasured. 

I am tied to a cord and hung on a neck. I am put on a helmet and carried about on a head. I am rested on pillows and carved bones and carved wood that was never part of me. I am carried in hands. These things happen many times in different orders. 

Once I am placed where the sun can touch me and my light fills the room with fire and then douses the flame with honey. 

Goblins fight over me. Sometimes I am a weapon used to crack a skull. 

Fairies come with metal and give it to the one who carries me. There is a flower carved at the top of the stick. I know of dominance ploys now. I am tied to the bog iron branch with leather – fairy hide – and they shiver at its pallor. Their attempt to assert dominance by stealth has been recognized and refuted. The flower stays. The leather stays. The fairies fly away. The goblins stay. 

I travel more often. The hide rots away over the years and is replaced with leather from various animals. The metal stays the same. 

It is part of me now, and its memories are mine. Metal is older than amber. I am pulled from the earth and heated and melted and divided and shaped and cooled and given to goblins and joined to an amber stone. 

I fight. I fly. I bespell. I sing. 

Sometimes I am taken to visit the rest of me. I cannot flow back and merge into the tree I was. Other bits of me have been chipped and taken away and they cannot flow back either. 

The goblin who carries me usually has another, smaller goblin with them when they visit the rest of me. The smaller goblin will grow and carry me later and bring another, smaller goblin to visit the rest of me. 

I fight fairy steel. The metal is old, but the blade is young. I sing with a fairy. The goblin who carries me brings the fairy with the sword to visit the tree I was and tells my story. 

The goblin leaves out a lot of my story and adds many details about other goblins. They always do. Goblins have short memories.


End file.
